


Do not stand at my grave and weep

by blackkat



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Children of Earth Fix-It, Fairies, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-23
Updated: 2012-05-19
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:12:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another painful breath, but it’s getting easier now, his body carefully adjusting to what should be natural, and Ianto can make out shapes around him in the shadows. Small, swift shapes darting through the air. Larger, gangly shapes leaning out of the tree branches or looming over him. Ianto wants to ask who they are, what they are, but his body is still too weak.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Do not stand at my grave and weep

**Author's Note:**

> I was bushwhacked by a very insistent plot bunny. This is the result. The story title comes from the title of the Mary Frye poem that is used within. The other quoted poems are O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman and The Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats.

Awareness returns slowly.

Life comes in bits and pieces, a thought here, a breath there. And all the while, Ianto can hear the whispers. All around him, about him, everywhere, _through_ him in ways that should not be possible, the creatures whisper and laugh and flutter. The sound of their wings is like birds suddenly startled into flight, a flutter and rush and then empty freedom in an equally empty sky. 

They whisper, and they laugh, and suddenly Ianto is _alive_ again, flat on his back in an ancient wood.

It’s painful. This body—his body? A new one? He’s not quite sure—is unused to even simple things like blinking, and breathing, and seeing. Like muscles that have long since atrophied—or perhaps never been used at all—his lungs _ache_ as he draws air into them, lets it out again. His eyes burn even in the darkness, the cool air painful to them, and his ears ring with the quiet murmur of a nighttime forest. Ianto is helpless, like a newborn babe in the face of this unexpected return, and the vulnerability is maddening.

Wind is picking up, stinging his sensitive skin like hail, and a hiss of pain escapes his unfamiliar throat. It’s too much, or he’s too sensitive, the air, which would otherwise be soft and warm, turned fierce and arctic. Even the smell of it—like spring and summer, both at once but at the same time neither—is overwhelming, like stepping from frozen, barren winter into a hothouse in full bloom. The grass beneath his bare body is as hard and sharp as metal filings, the earth like concrete even when his head tells him it should be soft loam. He can feel it, all of it—every grain of dirt and blade of grass, every leaf fluttering from the overhanging boughs to land softly on his body. Perhaps he has been lying here for an eternity. Perhaps it has only been a moment. Time has vanished from his mind, even though it has always meant so much to him, counting the passage of it. Here, in this nighttime wood of green and summer gold, time has ceased to exist, and he cannot reclaim it. Here and now, he is not sure he wants to. 

Another painful breath, but it’s getting easier now, his body carefully adjusting to what should be natural, and Ianto can make out shapes around him in the shadows. Small, swift shapes darting through the air. Larger, gangly shapes leaning out of the tree branches or looming over him in a way that all but radiates protective concern. Ianto wants to ask who they are, what they are, but his body is still too weak. He’s at their mercy, without even the ability to speak. 

There is a flicker, like moonlight, and one of the small forms comes to perch on his chest. The weight is crushing, even though Ianto knows that in reality it’s probably almost nothing. He stares up at the creature, and feels his breath catch in his throat, frozen in his lungs.

He knows this creature.

The little fairy laughs at him, the sound echoing oddly, and leans forward to touch his nose. Ianto tries to hold back a flinch, because he remembers Estelle and Jasmine and what happened to Gwen’s flat, but it’s apparently not successful, because the fairy giggles at him and flickers away. In its place, one of the larger ones emerges from the gloom and leans over him. Somehow, Ianto is less terrified of this one, because it doesn’t try to hide what it is with a pretty form or graceful movements. It is a creature of the earth, of the trees, of time itself, with moss-green skin and gangling limbs like oak branches and ancient, ancient eyes.

“ _Human child,_ ” it hisses, in that voice that is so deceptively sweet and light, even as it is unthinkably eerie. 

Ianto wants to answer, protest that he’s not a child, even if he is human, but his vocal cords are so useless they might as well be absent, nothing but a rush of air leaving his throat. The fairy seems to understand nevertheless, because it laughs, too, a child’s laugh from a monster’s body. “ _Human child_ ,” it repeats, as though affirming the label. “ _We have taken you._ ”

The question is in his eyes, Ianto knows, the _why_ so loud and obvious it might as well be spoken. He’s not sure what happened, not sure of the reason he is here, but the last thing he remembers is a cold, empty, alien voice and a creeping toxin, a whispered confession to a man who will never truly die and an agonized _don’t_ that broke his heart even as it stopped beating. Broke his heart for _Jack_ , because Jack couldn’t accept his death even in the very moment of it. Because Jack has eternity to live, eternity to lose everyone he loves over and over, and there's _nothing Ianto can do_ to save him from that. He would in a heartbeat, would do anything, would trade places with Jack without a hesitation, because Jack is so heartbreakingly fragile for all that he can never be completely broken. 

The fairy grins at him, full of sharp needle-teeth. “ _Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep,_ ” it whispers, and then laughs again, as though this is the most amusing thing it has ever heard. Abruptly there is a rush around them, a thousand wings suddenly in use, as the fairies rise. There's something primal about it, something not beautiful, but awing in its earthly force. These are creatures out of time and space, with all the power of a hundred old gods. It’s no wonder Jack surrendered Jasmine to them, because these are the true rulers of the Earth, for all that they are content to remain in shadow. 

Something of his thoughts must show in his eyes, because the fairy’s grin widens almost grotesquely, showing about seven times the amount of teeth Ianto is comfortable with. But it makes no hostile motions, no threatening gestures. Rather, it touches his forehead with one long, gnarled finger and sighs, “ _I am a thousand winds that blow; I am the diamond glints on snow; I am the sunlight on ripened grain; I am the gentle autumn rain._ ” 

As it speaks, its eyes never leave Ianto’s, and they're so dark and deep, full of all the mysteries that could ever be and ever were, a world’s worth of timelessness and impossibility and care and laughter, tears and sorrows and births and deaths. In that moment he begins to understand. The fairies are not outside of time, not beyond it; they're _part_ of it in a way no other creature can be, and unless the Earth ceases to exist in all of time and space, unless the Earth never exists at all, they will remain. They are timeless in a way Jack is not, but at the same time in exactly the way he is. 

Everything that is and was and will be is in this creature’s eyes, and just for a moment, Ianto can understand it. 

But that understanding is too much, too soon, and darkness comes for him again. 

*.~.*.~.*

The next time Ianto wakes it is to find that breathing has again become effortless. His skin has settled, no longer the twitching mass of sensation and overstimulation that he remembers from his first awakening, and the grass beneath him actually feels soft. He doesn’t know if he has been moved or if the earth has moved around him, but the trees are at some distance, and he lies in the center of a summer meadow. 

Dawn is just breaking over the treetops, spilling light into the sky, and there are fairies everywhere. Ianto gathers his strength and turns his head, studying the area around him. His thoughts hang in a sort of heavy morass, suspended between disbelief, incredulity, and hope, and he has to remind himself that he has no idea why he’s been brought here ( _brought back_ , a little voice whispers, and is ignored). The fairies are not the sorts to do anything for nothing. They must want him for something, something only he can do, but for the life ( _or death_ , that little voice insists) of him, he can't imagine what. Maybe this is something that Jack has done.

_ Jack _ . The name alone is painful, and Ianto closes eyes that are stinging—from the light, he insists to himself, it’s just the light. He wonders how Jack is faring against the 456, if he’s won or lost, or if he lost but still let the human race win. Jack's the type to do that, to sacrifice everything that matters to him for the sake of everyone else. He seems to think that because he cannot die his pain matters little.

But then Ianto remembers his words when the 456 released the gas, how Jack was willing to give them the world to save Ianto’s life. Ianto is glad he didn’t—how would he ever be able to live with himself after a trade like that?—but it’s a little terrifying to know the depth of Jack's feelings for him. Especially when he would have thought Jack beyond such sacrifices, because Jack is always one to do the right thing no matter the difficulty of the choice. 

The soft buzz of wings draws his attention back to the world around him, and he opens his eyes to see one of the large fairies land in a crouch. Somehow, he knows that it’s the same one as spoke to him last time, though he can't pick out any defining features that make him certain. It grins at him, sharply amused, and Ianto is startled to find a smile pulling at his lips in return. 

“ _Human child,_ ” it greets, soft and uncanny. “ _Better now, human child?_ ”

Ianto manages to jerk his head in rough parody of a nod, more a spasm of muscles than anything else, and long, twig-like fingers close around his shoulders, pulling him upright. His body simply cannot comprehend the movement, and he makes a useless attempt to grab a hold of something to stop his fall. Before he can hit the ground, however, he is caught and held against a green, alien chest, awkward and bony but somehow comforting. The fairy croons gently at him, tangling fingers in his hair, and Ianto wonders if consoling like this is a skill it learned dealing with the Chosen Ones, or because it once _was_ a Chosen One. 

There is another flutter of wings as one of the tiny fairies alights next to them, bearing something in its small hands. Ianto looks at it and can't decide whether to laugh or cry. The fairy doesn’t notice his consternation, or doesn’t care; it pushes Ianto’s slightly battered stopwatch into his hands and helps him fold his awkward, unmanageable fingers around the cool metal. Ianto grips it with all the strength he can muster and nods his thanks, even as his fingers seek out the small dent on the edge, where it fell and hit the floor while he and Jack were working their way through that list. Good memories, sweet thoughts, and Ianto has to choke back a rough, dark sob. He hasn’t had time to think yet, no opportunity to reflect on what has happened, but this brings the thoughts to the forefront whether he’s ready for them or not. What has happened? What _is_ happening, to him and back on Earth? Why is he here, alone and out of time, when he is neither a child nor a Chosen One? Where is Jack in all of this, and has Ianto finally confessed what he feels only for them to be ripped apart for all eternity?

“ _Away_ ,” the small fairy giggles rising up to perch on his shoulder. Ianto is relieved to find that the weight is nothing like what he remembers from last time, more like a sparrow or a particularly large butterfly. “ _Away with us he's going, the solemn-eyed—”_

The larger fairy giggles, too, the sound utterly incongruous with its size and appearance, and waves the other one off. One large hand closes over Ianto’s, tightening his fingers on the stopwatch. “ _Time is here, human child. All of time. See it?_ ”

Ianto looks at the ticking hands, the turning gears that mark each second going by, and frowns. He sees, a little, but that sudden rush of understanding that he felt before doesn’t come. “What?”

The fairy hisses, impatient, and lifts his hand to shake it in front of him. “ _See? Time, trapped! Yours now, all of it. ‘Do not stand at my grave and weep; I am not there. I do not sleep.’ They would have taken_ ours _, all of ours. We did nothing then, but we do it now._ ”

Ours, the fairy says, and Ianto knows what it means. The Chosen Ones—there must have been one of the Chosen Ones among the ten percent that the 456 demanded, or the future parent of a Chosen one, something to anger them. Because the creature _is_ angry, is _furious,_ and Ianto can feel that rage right against his bones, like the Earth itself rebelling against the memory of the child-snatchers. 

Abruptly, the fairy’s touch gentles, and it sets his hand back in his lap with careful fingers. “ _O Captain! my Captain! Our fearful trip is done; the ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won.”_

So Jack managed to defeat the 456. Ianto closes his eyes again in relief. Of course Jack won; the only question is what it cost him, because Ianto knows that such victories are never cheap. To defeat one man intent on Jack's death and save Cardiff cost them Tosh and Owen. It’s painful to think what saving ten percent of the world’s children might have required. 

“ _Sleep_ ,” the fairy croons, stroking Ianto’s face with long fingers. Its skin smells of deep forests and sunshine, with the faintest undertone of roses. “ _Sleep, human child. Better soon, and then return_.”

It’s a relief to know that they don’t intend to keep him here forever, but Ianto can't think too much on that. All of his thoughts are on the fairy’s outburst, on the stopwatch still clenched in his hand. More than anything, the words “ _Time, trapped! Yours now, all of it,_ ” follow him down into slumber.

They cannot mean what he thinks they do, but for the life of him, Ianto can think of no other meanings.

*.~.*.~.*

The third awakening is much smoother than either of the others, feeling returning to his limbs as it normally would, along with basic motor control. Ianto sits up as soon as he’s sure he can, eager to do _something_ , anything, that will return him to Jack. The fairy’s words still pound in his head, but they're a lesser concern. Somewhere, some when, Jack is hurting, mourning what had to be done to defeat the 456. Ianto can feel it in his blood, his bones, the very air he breathes—something is wrong with Jack. 

There are fairies around him again, a swarm of them all restless and unsettled. They feel it, too, Ianto assumes, spotting his fairy—as much as any of them can be his, which is not much—in the midst of the group. It seems to feel him looking, because it drops down beside him and keens, “ _Gone! He left! Wrong! Cannot take you bring you leave you yet!_ ”

Then it’s gone again, twisting through the mass of its brethren, and Ianto is left to make sense from senselessness once more. This, at least, he can assume means Jack has left the planet in the current timeline, just before the fairies were about to return Ianto. It confirms Ianto’s guess that Jack did something terrible to drive off the 456, and that he can't forgive himself for it. Likely Gwen’s not much help on that front, either; she’s never been able to see that the choices Jack makes are those that _have_ to be made, and Jack is the only one strong enough to make them. 

Ianto likes Gwen well enough, truly. He understands that she sees Jack as some mythical hero, a man larger than life who shatters her dreams whenever he proves to be imperfect. He even understands Jack's need to be the hero she sees as much as he can, to prove to himself that he can be that man. But Gwen has always been the one to see the small picture, the individual, over the larger picture of the whole world. It’s one of the reasons Jack hired her in the first place, when the team began to overlook the people they were supposed to be protecting for the sake of catching the aliens that endangered them. Gwen might try to understand whatever choice Jack had to make, but in the end she won't. 

And Jack…sometimes Jack needs to know that he _isn’t_ a hero, that he can't always do the right thing, and that his every choice can't always be the perfect one. He no doubt blames himself for Ianto’s death, and the death of whoever it was that has driven him to leave the planet. Ianto can tell him, and Jack will even listen once in a great while, but while he’s stuck here there's no way Ianto can do anything.

“You control time,” he says, and the sound of his voice is startling, almost as much as the lack of rasp in it—as though he hasn’t been unable to speak, as though there's nothing different from the Ianto who walked into Thames House however long ago that was. 

Around him, the fairies still. They're all watching him, all waiting for something that Ianto isn’t sure he can give them. He clears his throat and tries again. 

“You control time. Can you bring me to when Jack returns?” he asks.

His fairy flutters down to crouch near him, alien face thoughtful. “ _Go now? No waiting? Keep ours safe?_ ”

There it is—that’s what they want from him, Ianto realizes, why they’ve brought him back. The threat to the Chosen Ones has scared them in a way that nothing has before, the arrival of an enemy that they cannot reach, bound to the Earth as they are. Now they want someone to do what they cannot, leave Earth if needs be and protect the Chosen Ones in this time and all others. 

“Why me?” he has to ask. “Why pick me?”

The fairy reaches out to touch his forehead again, a gentle tap that sends a lingering burst of warmth through him. “ _Smart,_ ” it giggles, “ _like us. Cunning and dark and bright. Human child, in another time, you would be ours. You face the child-snatchers. We bring you here back now forever so you will protect._ _Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there, I did not die._ ”

It’s a logic game, puzzling out meaning from cryptic clues, but Ianto’s always been good at that. He nods to the fairy and answers, “Yes. I'm ready to go now. I’ll keep them safe.”

The fairy grins, but Ianto can't find it in himself to be scared any longer. They're creatures of the earth, of Earth, and they might be cruel, but Ianto can be, too. He’s always had a darkness inside of him. It’s in his dreams sometimes, a coldly vicious voice that wants to kill, to disregard the façade of politeness that has forever been his mask and just act on his impulses ( _like Adam let us_ , that voice says gleefully, even though Ianto doesn’t hear it). So he smiles back and says softly, “Thank you.”

Jack might hate him for this, for being a part of these creatures that killed Estelle, but Ianto hopes he won't. He hopes that Jack will see that it’s still _him_ , that Ianto is still the same no matter what deals he has made. And really, what choice is there? If he refused, what would the fairies do? Keep him here with the Chosen Ones until time runs down and the universe ends?

If there is a choice, it is no choice at all. Ianto knows what he has to do, what he _wants_ to do.

The fairy leans forward and takes his head in its hands, pulling him forward so that their foreheads touch and remaining there for a long moment. “ _Go,_ ” it agrees. “ _Anywhere, any when. We will always know._ You _will always know danger to ours_ , _human child_.” 

The world is spinning, or maybe that’s just the fairies fluttering around them in fits and starts, circles inscribed by rushing wings and breathless laughter. “ _Do not stand at my grave and cry,_ ” they whisper, laugh, sing, hiss. “ _I am not there, I did not die_.” Ianto can feel something building, some power, and closes his eyes against it. The next instant there is a burst of light and air and then nothing, and Ianto falls through it all, down, down, down and back to the Earth he knows. 

*.~.*.~.*

Thankfully, Ianto does not wake up buried six feet below the surface in a wood box. Nor does he come awake inside a cryo-chamber in the Hub, which would be preferable to a grave but hardly optimal. Rather, Ianto Jones returns to life on a bed of rose petals in the Torchwood Three Archives, right at the marker between the L and M sections. There are traces of debris from the Hub’s destruction here, but nothing substantial; it appears that the explosion was mostly contained to the main area, and though Ianto mourns the reminders of their lost teammates that were kept there, it’s a small part. The lower levels are much more important in the long run, holding all of the files and records and knowledge that Torchwood has managed to hoard over the years. 

Ianto sits up with a soft groan, because while he is in full control of his body, there's still a persistent ache, as though the muscles have never been used before even though they know what to do in theory. Standing is even more of a challenge, and his legs wobble dangerously until he manages to steady himself with the help of the nearest file cabinet. His breathing is already a little harsh, and Ianto wonders with amused despair how he’s supposed to get all the way up to the main floor, if it even exists anymore. All signs point to yes, as someone has cleaned up and the Archives look cared for, and they'd hardly take care of the Archives and leave the rest of the Hub in ruins.

As he drags himself towards the door, his eyes focus on the nearest shelf, and Ianto can't contain the urge to roll his eyes. He sees Jack's hand in this—no one else would file an item marked “Deadly: do not tamper with” under D when it is clearly a Judoon blaster. It makes Ianto fear for the state of the rest of his Archives, since clearly the Captain has been the only one down here, and that’s a clear invitation for chaos.

And Jack is here—he can feel it, the same way he could feel when something was wrong. Jack still needs him. Torchwood still needs him, if only to teach their erstwhile Captain the alphabet. Ianto smiles to himself, even as he staggers towards the door. It opens before he can even touch it, and laughter ripples through the air with a whisper of, “ _Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep_.” Feeling as though he too could laugh, Ianto waves a hand in thanks and stumbles forward, catching and bracing himself against the corridor wall. He wonders absently about interior CCTV, if they’ve picked up his presence yet, but can't bring himself to worry about it. Either whoever is watching will notice—probably Gwen, he guesses, wondering if she’s still pregnant—and come find him, or he’ll find them when he manages to drag himself all the way up to the Hub.

‘ _How long has it been?_ ’ he wonders. How much time has passed since his death? Have they moved on? Found a new body for general support and basic fieldwork? Has Jack found someone new? Love is all well and good, but comfort often wins out. What will Ianto do, if Jack doesn’t want him back?

The fairies whisper around him, comforting, and a sudden wind whirls a flurry of rose petals past him, leaving him untouched by the gale. Frowning a little—because they're playing tricks, and this probably won't end as smoothly as Ianto wants it to because of it—Ianto hurries after them as much as he is able, keeping upright with one hand on the wall. The path is steady under his feet, new concrete that shown no wear in the place of the well-worn stone Ianto is used to. It leads straight up, right towards the Hub’s main room, and all Ianto has to do is follow the trail of petals. It’s not the best herald of his arrival, in all truth; he remembers Jack's reaction to them last time, and the aching fury he was left with afterwards. But it’s still a distraction when Ianto is otherwise unsure of how to reveal his presence beyond a simple “hello.” While that’s certainly acceptable, it lacks the drama that should accompany a return from the dead, Ianto thinks. 

Then again, drama has always been Jack's department, he rationalizes as he all but falls through the entrance to the main area, to find himself in the midst of chaos. People are shouting, weapons are out, and Ianto has a brief moment to be disoriented by the number of them—it’s not just Jack and Gwen, of that he’s certain—before he’s noticed, and suddenly finds himself facing the business end of the entire team’s guns. 

There's a shocked silence, complete and absolute. Ianto can all but feel the alarm radiating off of them as he tries to steady his spinning head. Slowly, his vision rights itself, and he realizes that he’s looking straight into Martha Jones’s wide, worried brown eyes. 

“Ianto?” she breathes.

“Martha,” he greets, then looks down at himself and realizes that he’s still as naked as he was in that other world. “I seem to have misplaced my clothes. Are there any spares?”

Before she can answer, though, the world starts spinning again. Ianto hears the fairies laughing, smells the cloying, overpowering sweetness of roses, and gives himself over to the darkness once more. 

 

 


	2. I am not there. I do not sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter…eh. I'm not good at writing Jack. Constructive criticism is welcome. The quoted poems are, respectively, In Memoriam by George Santayana and Birth and Death by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Life has finally returned to normal, or as close as it ever comes for a secret alien-hunting organization. Jack has started a new team, a new life, and even if he hasn’t put the mistakes and hard decisions of the past behind him, he’s at least attempting to move forward and live regardless.

But it’s so _hard_ sometimes. He’ll see something, and turn to tell Ianto, or think of something that would have made Ianto laugh, or see a shade of blue so like the Welshman’s eyes that it will make his throat ache. If the last year has been an indication of what the rest of his long, long life is going to be like, Jack has no need to worry about breaking his promise to Ianto. There's no chance of forgetting him, or anything about him, a thousand years from now or a million.

Right now, he’s Weevil hunting, which is incredibly bittersweet. More often than not, he and Ianto used it as code for other activities, but even when they were actually doing it, it still made good memories. Ianto always took fieldwork so seriously, no matter the target, and through his eyes Jack could see the gravity of what they were doing, the reason for it articulated in way Gwen couldn’t understand. The memories are pervasive enough that Jack can't even think about bringing anyone else with him anymore—be it euphemism or not, Weevil hunting is reserved for him and the ghost of the one he’s lost. Time will probably change that, time and necessity, but for now Jack won't change his mind, no matter how Gwen insists that he’s taking stupid risks. It’s not like anything can happen to him.

As he slams the creature into the alley wall, already fumbling for the cuffs and hood, Jack curses at himself and the Weevil equally. He can hardly go an hour without thinking of Ianto in some way, and whenever he thinks of Ianto he unfailingly remembers their last words to each other.

_Don’t._

_What kind of man answers a dying lover’s confession with ‘don’t’?_

_Is there anyone in the world crueler than you?_

_You felt it, but—_

_Don’t._

It’s a loop inside his head, a ring of castigation and horror that won't stop, and Jack can't do anything to be rid of it. Half the time, he's not sure he wants to be. This is one way to remember Ianto, to make sure he’s never forgotten—endless guilt and self-disgust, trapping his heart so that no one and nothing else can enter. As long as Jack remembers, as long as Ianto never fades completely from mind, he’ll have kept his promise, regardless of whether he can remember Ianto’s scent of smile or laugh.

The Weevil goes down with a groan, out cold, and Jack stands over it for a moment, breathing hard. John Hart, on his way through after everything was done, had informed him gleefully that self-destruction wasn’t a good look for him, but Jack can't bring himself to care anymore. He’s felt low before, has felt despair so piercing that he longed for the release of blowing his own brains out, but this is a new low. Ianto and Stephen are points of guilt and terror dragging him down, and while he’s managing to function—because he has to, because the team expects him to—he’s not fighting them. If anything, he's embracing them and their hold on him. He has no right to _anything_ while they are dead because of him.

Jack's good at guilt. He’s even better at self-loathing and despair, and that’s all he’s feeling at the moment, no matter what face he presents to the world. Jack Harkness is a broken man, and the only one who could have fixed him died in Thames House, victim of Jack's hubris.

And then his comm comes to life in his ear, and Martha’s worried voice says, “Jack? Get back to the Hub. Something’s happening.”

She’s gone again before he can ask questions, and Jack swears again, heaving the Weevil up over his shoulder to stagger back towards the SUV. Martha’s used to the Doctor; she wouldn’t call him for anything less than a true emergency. Jack might have lost Tosh, Owen, and Ianto, but he’ll be permanently dead before he lets another one of his team slip through his fingers when he can prevent it.

“I'm on my way,” he says as he slams the door and starts the engine, Weevil secured in the back—speaking futilely, it seems, because no one is listening any more. Jack doesn’t wait for further confirmation, but guns it for the Hub.

When he squeals into the parking garage, he barely even remembers to turn the engine off before he’s sprinting to the entrance. Andy Davidson meets him at the cog door, tight-lipped and paler than normal, but when Jack opens his mouth to demand answers, Andy simply shakes his head and says, “See for yourself, mate,” as he steps aside.

Jack takes one look and sees.

There are rose petals everywhere, thick on the floor and scattered over the workstations like bloody snow. For one gut-wrenching moment Jack fears the worst, expects to see bodies when he turns his head, but there aren’t any. Voices are coming from the medical bay, Martha's calm tones and Gwen’s nearly hysterical ones, with Mickey interjecting. Jack glances at Andy again, but the former PC just urges him on with a nod.

It takes twelve long strides to reach the railing overlooking Martha's area.

It takes less than one second to realize what he is seeing, and have his world shift around him.

*.~.*.~.*

“It’s him, Jack, I'm sure of it,” Martha says, waving a syringe and rather large needle in the Captain’s face as she shoos him away from her patient. “Exact same DNA, exact same brainwave pattern, same blood type, everything. The only odd thing is his age.”

Jack jerks his eyes away from Ianto’s still face at this and looks over at her, concern creasing his brow. “His age?”

There's a note of excitement in Martha's voice, one that Jack remembers with a bittersweet pang from Owen on the verge of discovery. “Jack, it’s incredible! According to all of this—” a sweep of her hand takes in the advanced and alien-augmented medical equipment humming steadily around them “—and his cellular aging, Ianto Jones is maybe six hours old, if that. It’s as if he were born just before the intruder alarms went off.”

Jack stares at her for a moment, and then looks back down at to body on the exam table. Ianto is as he remembers him in those last moments, right down to the scar on his cheek. Jack’s mind catches on that little detail, and with a frown he leans forward to study it more closely. In fact, that scar is _exactly_ the same. It hasn’t healed at all, even though almost two years have passed. To have Ianto here, like this—it’s almost as if the fairies snatched him out of Thames House in the very moment of his death.

But they didn’t.

Jack was there; he heard Ianto’s last words, held him as the light faded from his eyes. The Ianto that was at Thames House cannot be the Ianto that is here. Ianto is dead.

But the man lying on the table defies him with the mere fact of his existence.

“Mickey?” Jack says after a long moment. “Any Rift activity about the time he got here?”

“Nothing.” Mickey’s already leaning over the rail, enviably calm. But then, he’s never met Ianto. Any knowledge he had of Ianto’s death was distant, one stranger to another. He’s never seen those blue eyes full of fire, or heard Ianto’s deadpan delivery and snarky wit. Ianto is nothing to him, and while Jack envies him his composure, he can't envy never having met Ianto. The Welshman is a singular person. In all the times and places he’s been, Jack's never met another like him, and he knows he never will. It’s another reason his loss is—was?—so heartbreaking, because Jack knew he’d never get back even a fraction of what was taken from him.

But Jack knows better than anyone that there are no second chances, so what is this? An attempt to get through their defenses? But surely whatever race it is would be better served using a living member of the team, as a dead—or formerly dead—one is likely to draw exactly the wrong type of scrutiny.

And where do the fairies fit in, then?

As though summoned by the thought, there's a sharp flutter, and a tiny, moon-white figure drops from nowhere to land on Ianto—on his right hand, which Jack only now notices is clenched around something. It smiles up at him, disarmingly pretty and sweet, and laughs like the countless children it has stolen. Martha gasps and says something, maybe a demand for information, explanation, but Jack and the fairy both ignore her.

“What do you want?” Jack asks coldly. “He’s not a Chosen One, so why are you here?”

It simply giggles at him, high and sweet, and offers, “ _But yet I treasure in my memory your gift of charity, and young hearts ease; and the dear honour of your amity; for these once mine, my life is rich with these. And I scarce know which part may greater be—what I keep of you, or you rob from me._ ”

Another string of delighted giggles and the thing is airborne again, hovering over the medical bay as the team watches warily. Andy has his gun out, as does Mickey, and Martha is reaching for the singularity scalpel—it makes Jack proud of all of them, to see their response to this threat even though he knows they have no chance against even one fairy.

And then there is a slow stirring from beneath the creature, on the table. Ianto—or whatever is wearing Ianto’s body—opens his eyes and sees the fairy, and smiles.

“Santayana,” he murmurs to it, as though in congratulation. “Your repertoire is expanding.”

As those blue eyes fall on him, Jack finds he can't breathe.

Surely this isn’t a trick.

Surely nothing and no one in the universe can mimic those Welsh vowels or that careful diction, so inconsistent with his age. Surely there is nothing that could ever copy the bright blue steel of that gaze, tempered with warmth and just a trace of darkness.

Jack can't believe anything could, or would. This _must_ be real, because otherwise he will be broken beyond all repair.

“Ianto,” he whispers, and his voice breaks even on that one word which is so much more.

Ianto smiles at him and moves his right hand, offering what he holds to Jack. Dazed, uncertain, Jack moves anyway, reaching out and taking the thing without looking. Then his fingers close over it, and the coolness of the metal draws his gaze down to where their fingers touch.

The stopwatch.

Jack closes his eyes and swallows to fight back tears, and it’s almost a relief to see the suspicious brightness in Ianto’s eyes as well. Of all the things that Ianto could have offered, of all the proof that he could have produced, this is the thing that convinces Jack without a doubt that he is who he appears to be. The “how” doesn’t matter, nor does the “why.” Ianto has been brought back, and that’s the important thing.

“What started it all,” Jack says, lifting the battered watch from Ianto’s grip and studying it. His eyes fall on the dent they caused that first night, when neither of them could think of anything beyond months and months of foreplay and sexual tension, past the heat of skin on skin, and he smiles just a little bit. Any more right now and his heart might crack.

There's a soft chuckle, and Ianto lets go, allowing him to slide the stopwatch into his own pocket, where his fob watch usually resides. “Actually, I think that honor goes to Myfanwy,” Ianto corrects. The name is like a stab in the gut, even now, and Jack tries to hide his flinch. They haven’t found the pteranodon yet, and even though she was allowed to come and go from the Hub as she pleased, Jack knows there's a large chance that she didn’t make it out before the base was destroyed. He hasn’t truly looked for her, one way or another—acknowledging her loss would have been like losing the very last piece of _his_ Ianto, of their time together.

From the softness—not pity, never pity, but maybe sympathy—that comes into his eyes, Ianto understands. He keeps his hands to himself, but Jack can almost see Ianto’s desire to reach out and touch the Captain, offering comfort. Ianto’s always like that, always more grounded when caring for someone else, or organizing things, or taking charge in the quiet, behind-the-scenes way he has. It’s just one more shred of certainty for Jack that this _is_ Ianto. It’s really him.

The joy is even more overwhelming than the grief, to a debilitating degree. Jack staggers one step forward and falls to his knees beside the operating table, clenching Ianto’s hand between both of his. Desperately, fearfully, he presses their entwined fingers against his cheek, breathing in the scent of clean soap and roses that clings to Ianto’s skin, and for the first time in almost two years, he allows himself to hope.

*.~.*.~.*

Ianto falls asleep again after only a short time conscious. Gwen, after she recovers from her shock, tries to call a team meeting to discuss things. However, Jack refuses to let Ianto out of his sight, despite reassurances that Ianto’s body is simply exhausted and in need of rest, and Martha has tests she’s waiting for, so they end up convening on the balcony above the medical bay. The fairy stays, too, despite their wary glances and careful distance as it perches on Ianto’s chest.

“We’d just got back from lunch,” Andy explains when they all look at him, as the first one into the Hub, to start. “Alarms were saying there’d been an intruder, but none of the entrances were disturbed. We were right at Jubilee, could see the door the whole time.”

“I checked,” Gwen adds. Like Jack, she can't seem to keep her eyes away from Ianto for long, even when he’s asleep. “No one came through anywhere, Jack. It’s like he just appeared from nowhere. I was looking through the cameras to see what had happened and suddenly there were roses everywhere, just like last time.” Her hands tighten on the steel railing in front of her at the reminder of the fairies’ invasion of her home. “And _he_ came through the door, naked as a babe, and asked Martha for some spare clothes.”

Jack can't fight the chuckle that worms its way up from his chest. He gives into it, lets it out, and it feels good. He hasn’t laughed at all in so long that even this much is a release. Gwen giggles with him, hiding her face against her arms, and they lean together, survivors of Torchwood Three, comrades through everything.

“That’s just like him, isn’t it?” Jack asks softly, smiling.

“Yeah,” Gwen agrees, still laughing a little helplessly. She grips Jack's hand so hard it’s almost painful, but there's a joyous hope in her eyes that’s been absent as long as Jack's has. “It’s really him, isn’t it, Jack?” she asks, shaking her head slightly. “I can't believe it. I mean, it’s Torchwood—we always say anything can happen, but this…”

“This,” Jack echoes, and they both look back at the last remaining member of their trio, their practicality and their compass. Even with the new team, they’ve still been lost, adrift, without Ianto. It no longer matters how. They're just glad to have him back.

Mickey, who’s been surprisingly reticent about Ianto’s return, stirs from his perch astride the rail and tilts his head toward the little fairy, flitting around the bay like glints of moonlight off broken glass. “Why?” he asks. “If they're the ones who brought him back, why only choose him? He’s not one of theirs, right?”

Gwen and Jack trade glances, suddenly uncertain. They’ve told the others about their previous encounter with the fairies, grandstanding over lunch just like they used to with Tosh and Owen, trying to outdo each other with tales. But this—this is something beyond what they know, what they thought the fairies capable of. For all their power, the fairies had seemed relatively straightforward—capricious, cruel, obsessed with their Chose One, but still simple, reciting bits of poetry that must have once caught their eye. Now they seem to be something entirely different, something with a purpose beyond the theft of children.

Jack doesn’t like underestimating an enemy, especially one with the power to bring back the dead.

A sharp giggle draws their attention back to the bay, and Mickey gives a startled shout, falling off the rail as he goes for his gun again. Andy and Martha are a step behind, falling back into defensive stances, but Jack just raises a hand to stop them. If it trembles a little at the sight of the creature before them, no one remarks on it.

The fairy, now taller than a man, with long branch-like limbs and a flat, eerie face, simply grins at them as it bends over Ianto, straightening the sheet that covers him with awkward movements, as though the act is entirely alien to it but it’s mimicking something it’s seen done. That alone is enough to make Jack's head spin, to twist his view of them around a hundred and eighty degrees. It’s _tucking Ianto in_ , and if Jack didn’t already think his sanity gone in the face of the day’s events, he’d hand command over to Gwen right now and lock himself in his bunker. However, she looks just as fascinated as he feels, staring down at the scene in somewhat horrified wonder.

Its task complete, the fairy looks up at them again, grin in place. “ _Birth and death, twin-sister and twin-brother; night and day, on all things that draw breath, reign, while time keeps friends with one another, birth and death,_ ” it hisses, seeming pleased with itself, as though this is an answer to their question.

And perhaps it is. The fairies control all the forces on Earth, slip back and forth through time as though there's no trouble in it. How simple must it be for them to create a new body and slide an already existing consciousness into place? Ianto, this Ianto, is their creation, made by them for some purpose Jack can't even contemplate.

“You made him,” he breathes, and the humans all look at him while the fairy remains oblivious to the magnitude of this statement.

“ _Yes,_ ” it agrees, gleefully. “ _Stolen from death and ours now. Protector to kill child-snatchers._ ” There's anger in its primeval eyes, the kind that strips flesh from bone and kills like a wildfire. “ _Protect Protector, undying? You killed them, killed them all._ ” A laugh, eerie and wild, not a child-laugh right now. “ _We thank you, undying. But we have Protector for ours now!_ ”

Wind picks up, trapped in the Hub where it shouldn’t be, and the petals fly like drops of blood, so thick that Jack can't see Martha or Mickey at either end of the railing. He shouts, tries to call to them, to make sure they're all right, but it’s useless. The rush of countless wings beating is too loud, too sharp, and he ducks away from it, pulling Gwen down with him as panic flutters hard and freezing in his chest.

And then it’s over, just as suddenly as it began. Everything is still. Jack blinks at Gwen where they lie on the cement, and Gwen blinks back. They sit up slowly, the others doing the same, and look around. There's no sign of anything out of the ordinary. The roses are gone, and not a paper is out of place. Jack feels a sudden jolt of fear and has to spin, looking for Ianto as the idea _they might have taken him too_ beats against the inside of his skull. But Ianto is fine, sleeping peacefully, and Jack lets out a huff of amused relief as he claws his way back to his feet.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he says, as dry as Ianto at his best. “Now you’ve met the fairies.”

*.~.*.~.*

They might speak in riddles, but the fairies always leave enough clues to solve the puzzle. It’s a weakness, Jack thinks. They're too used to games and mysteries, being untouchable. To be fair, they still are, but it means that even when giving less important clues and speaking in tongues, there's enough information for Jack to pick out their purpose in resurrecting—recreating—Ianto.

A protector for the Chosen Ones.

 _Protect Protector, undying_?

“You don’t have to ask,” Jack mutters into the silence of the Hub at midnight. Martha was shooed home to her husband hours ago, and Gwen left early to take care of Anwen. Mickey and Andy had left together with the intent of hitting the pub, and Jack had watched them go with memories of Owen swimming close to the surface. It’s an ungrateful, cruel thought, but he can't help but wonder why the fairies chose Ianto. Was it because he was convenient, having met the 456? Or was it because Ianto is more like the fey than anyone’s given him credit for? Jack knows quite well that Ianto isn’t simply the impassive alien-hunting butler he often appears, but a dangerous man. Who else could have concealed a Cyberman in their midst, lied so easily and fluently about _everything_ while hiding his true face?

Jack's forgiven him for that—long ago, because for all the terrible reasons people have for doing incredibly stupid things, love is the best and the worst—but it’s still a clear reminder that Ianto is much more than even his friends, his team, know. If the fairies saw that…

Is that the reason they chose him? Did they see it when everyone else was blind?

It makes Jack wonder what would have happened if Ianto had been on fieldwork the first time they encountered the fairies. Would they have taken him then, even if he weren’t a child or a Chosen One?

There are too many questions, too many suppositions from a few lines of poetry, and Jack suspects that Ianto has just as few answers as the rest of them. With a sigh—because nothing is ever easy, least of all coming back from the dead, and he should know—he heaves himself out of his chair and wanders back to the medical bay. He’s been haunting it on and off all day as Ianto sleeps, just watching the other man’s chest rise and fall with his steady breaths. The absolute stillness of Ianto’s slumber reminds him of his own the first few times he came back from the dead—complete exhaustion as the body acclimates to the impossible, to something that should never happen. That thought alone makes Jack restless, makes him want to pace or find a high rooftop somewhere, because _what if it’s true_? What if an eternity alone has suddenly become eternity with a companion?

Jack once told Gwen that he would rather kill Suzie himself than let her become like him, and it was the truth. Immortality wasn’t something he’d wish on an enemy, let alone a lover. But if it has been done, if there is no other choice, can’t they make the most of it?

“You're thinking too hard,” Ianto murmurs, and Jack blinks down at him in surprise. The Welshman smiles briefly, eyes open but expression tired. “Can't sleep, Jack?”

Jack returns the smile with more intensity, clattering down the stairs to stand by Ianto’s bed. He’s been moved to one of the cots off to the side, for more comfort, and Jack settles on the edge of it, taking his hand carefully. “Hey,” he says softly. “How do you feel?”

Ianto sighs and closes his eyes again. “Tired,” he admits, “like I've never been awake this long before. But it’s getting better. And you, sir?”

Startled into laughter at the honorific, Jack squeezes Ianto’s hand. “All the better for having you back, Yan. Don’t you think we can drop the sir by now?”

Blue eyes open, turning towards him, and Jack is suddenly, brutally reminded of the last time they'd been in this position. Two years ago now, but it feels like nothing, like yesterday. Jack's breath catches in his throat, chest suddenly painfully tight, as if squeezed by an invisible hand. That damned _don’t_ rings in his ears, broken and cruel, and he has to turn away before he betrays himself.

“Hey.” Ianto’s voice is soft, sympathetic. “Jack, look at me. I'm right here.”

He knows that, and it’s part of the problem, but he looks back anyway, choking on all the things he could say and the one thing he can’t. Not now, not when this could all turn out to be a dream or a nightmare.

Their eyes meet, and there are oceans of things unspoken in Ianto’s, an entire speech pouring out his heart in the space of one glance. They’ve never used words, Jack hiding behind a grin and blustery bravado, Ianto behind a polite smile and a courteous ‘sir,’ but the words still exist whether they’re given voice or not. All the more, maybe, because they aren’t.

That was what the confession at Thames House had been—a sudden realization that leaving things unspoken wasn’t enough, that something things needed to actually be said, whether or not they both acknowledged those things normally. Jack knows, and knows that Ianto was right to speak. And now that he has the chance, now that he’s been given another opportunity, he can do the same. Not now, because in the medical bay with Ianto just reborn—recreated?—isn’t the time. But someday. Someday soon, even.

Ianto seems to read the resolution in Jack's face, because he smiles again and closes his eye as though satisfied, settling back into the blankets Martha had piled over him with a soft exhalation that could be relief. Within moments, his breathing has evened out again, deepening into sleep.

Jack sits next to him in the darkness, their fingers locked together as he counts each of Ianto’s breaths.


	3. I am a thousand winds that blow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive the delay, but I have chronic migraines, which unfortunately affect my posting/writing consistency. The poems used in this chapter are, respectively, _The Fairy Pendant_ and _Never give all the heart,_ both by William Butler Yeats, and _I’d Love to Be a Fairy’s Child_ by Robert Graves.

Since his death, Ianto has awoken three times in another world, once on the floor of the Archives, and twice in the autopsy bay. This seventh awakening is far sweeter than any of those, even the first one after his death, because for the first time he is truly _warm_.

The heat is the first thing he is aware of, his body warmer than Cardiff’s sunshine could ever leave him. It’s a dry heat, but not harsh like an electric blanket would be. Ianto shifts without opening his eyes, because being warm is lovely and he has no desire to leave this sensation behind, not when his most vivid memory of waking up is of that other world, cold and naked on the grass. He had returned to consciousness there only to find himself trapped in his own body, a prisoner locked within unresponsive limbs and hypersensitive skin, and simply remembering that feeling haunts him.

But then he realizes that he cannot move this time, either, only the reason is far different. There is a heavy weight pressing against his side, under the blankets. The weight is what’s generating the heat, so Ianto doesn’t mind the restraint too much. He relaxes into it, letting his senses drift. The Hub has always felt safe to him, even when he kept all of his secrets here, and thought that the discovery of them would get him a one-way ticket to the morgue. As far as safe houses go, the Hub isn’t ideal—there’s dripping water everywhere, and strange smells, and Ianto was never quite certain that some of the things Owen was growing in the lab shouldn’t have been moved down to the cells instead—but it’s his. He knows every inch of it, all the passages and leaks and touchy bits of wiring. Now, the sound of the dripping and the computers and the medical equipment all combine to lull him into a drowsy state of half-awareness, and he savors it. Just hours ago—at least for him—he was dead. That he’s alive again is a chance of fate, and he plans to make the most of it.

Because of his warm languidness, it takes Ianto several minutes to notice that the weight on the cot is actually _breathing_. Not only that, but it’s partially draped over him. Ianto frowns slightly, because it is either the most uncomfortable blanket he’s ever encountered or something else entirely. Experience tells him that “something else entirely” isn’t necessarily good.

Another few minutes pass before Ianto is able to bring himself to open his eyes—there's no great hurry, as he’s fairly certain that anything dangerous would have already killed him several times over. When he does, what his sees is a slight surprise—wholly welcome and very wonderful, but still a surprise. There is a large, warm body squashed into the cot alongside him. The ex-army cots are hardly built for double occupancy, and Ianto turns his head slightly to find his face all but mashed into the wall, he’s been pushed so far over to the side, but for the first time since his death, he’s warm. For the first time since his death, he’s happy. Jack is curled around and over him like some gigantic puppy, seeking as much skin-to-skin contact as is possible for them to have.

More than anything, this is what Ianto has missed. During the strange in-between time in that other world, during the catastrophe with the 456, it wasn’t the lack of sex that had left him aching and unfulfilled; it was the lack of touch. Oh, Jack had touched him—a casual brush here, a kiss there, but it was nothing substantial. After months of carefully choreographed touches during working hours, taking the maximum amount of contact in the shortest amount of time, and then sex and cuddling after work, Ianto—who had once shied away from all but the most intimate touches from those closest to him—had become so acclimated to Jack's constant need for tactile connection that doing without was almost physically painful.

Here, now, it’s as though Jack is making up for lost time. Ianto remembers drifting off with Jack sitting next to him, holding his hand. Somehow over the course of the night he’s migrated, flopping along the edge of the cot in a way that’s probably not intentional—Ianto can see the lines of weariness in Jack's face, which means the Captain is very tired indeed. He sleeps, despite all claims to the contrary, but not much and never deeply. For him to be like this—collapsed over the side of the bed, where he doubtless fell asleep sitting up, and not waking even when Ianto stirred—says clearly that the man is exhausted, and Ianto’s return has hardly lessened the strain.

But maybe, Ianto thinks, finding their fingers still entwined, it can. He's still the same as when he died, not lacking anything. The fairies did say he could go any place, any time, and they would still be able to find him if they needed him. There is nowhere else Ianto would rather be than Cardiff, except perhaps at Jack's side. Even if the fairies tried to convince him otherwise, there’s no possibility of Ianto leaving Torchwood. Torchwood and the team—and Jack—are Ianto’s entire world, his life and his death. Nothing can take him away.

As though roused by the volume of Ianto’s thinking alone, Jack stirs a little. His hand tightens reflexively around Ianto’s and he shoots upright in surprise, eyes going wide and breathing suddenly stuttering. Ianto jerks back, too, a little shocked, but the next moment Jack is on him, arms winding tight around his torso. Jack pulls him close, closer, impossibly close, burying his face in Ianto’s hair and letting out a laugh that is far closer to a sob.

“Ianto,” he whispers thickly, and Ianto has a sudden flashback to that strained _Ianto, Ianto stay with me. Ianto, stay with me please_ spoken in the same tone, last heard on a dirty floor in Thames House. His own throat is tight, so tight, tight enough to choke, but there's nothing he can say to make this better. Jack lost him, lost him just when he was needed the most, when Jack was still reeling from so many other losses. The pain and heartbreak of that won't simply vanish with Ianto’s return, as much as he wishes they would.

“Shh, Jack I'm here,” he offers softly, laying his hands over Jack's on his shoulders. The grip the Captain has on him is tight, almost painful, but it’s more comfort than Ianto has gotten in a very long time, and much welcome. He leans back into Jack's firm warmth and matches their breathing, content to remain where he is. At least right now, there is nothing else in the world but the two of them.

*.~.*.~.*

It is, Ianto realizes, very much like the stories of people spirited away by the fey folk, returned a hundred years later without having aged at all. There are differences everywhere when he used to know the Hub with his eyes closed. Just small things, a ninety-degree angle when before there was a forty-five, a new cup in place of Jack's old one, an unnerving lack of old pictures of the team.

The coffee maker is what finally beats home the message _things are different_.

Ianto wakes first again, and manages to slide out of the cot without waking Jack. Because he is used to early mornings from before—before the 456, before his resurrection like strange fairy-assisted Lazarus—his feet automatically take him to the kitchen, caffeine addiction unchanged by time spent dead. That much is still the same, at least.

But when he reaches the kitchen, there is no sign of the hulking monstrosity of a coffee maker that Owen always clamed was at least partially alien technology. In its place sits something modern and gleaming, all sleek lines and understated utility.

It feels like the loss of an old friend.

When Jack comes bounding up the stairs a few minutes later, panic on his face, Ianto is still standing there, staring at the new machine. The Captain understands with a glance, but offers no words of reassurance—he of all people knows what starting over is like. Instead, he wraps an arm around Ianto’s waist and steers him out of the kitchen, towards the couch that is no longer old and lumpy, and drops them down onto it. It’s his turn to comfort with touches, grounding and reassuring, and Ianto leans into it without a word, breathing carefully steady.

“Sorry, sir,” he says after a long moment, though he doesn’t move. He feels like his heart has moved a few inches to the right inside his chest, or as though reality has shifted one way and him the other. Life is different now, with the new Hub and the new team—he knows that rationally, but it’s another thing entirely to be suddenly faced with the loss of a symbol of stability.

But Jack simply shakes his head and holds him closer. “Don’t be sorry,” he orders, “not now, and not for this. Just—think of it like being in a coma. You were gone, but you're back now. That’s all that matters. Everything else will come with time.”

There is a shimmer in the gloom, a flicker of pale light, and the fairy who cared for Ianto in that other world settles on his knee. He can't say how he knows this is the same one he always saw in its other form, the same one waiting when he awoke in the autopsy bay, but it is, and it reaches out to grip one of his fingers in its tiny hands. “ _Though the tenderest roses were round you, the soul of this pitiless place, with pitiless magic has bound you—Ah! woe for the loss of your face, and the loss of your laugh with its lightness—Ah! woe for your wings and your head—Ah! woe for your eyes and their brightness—Ah! woe for your slippers of red._ ”

Ianto can't help but smile at the creature, and reach out with his free hand to gently touch those gossamer wings. “Thank you,” he says softly. “That’s very kind of you. But I'm happy here. I couldn’t have stayed in your world. This is my home. It’s just…different.”

The fairy leans into the touch and grins up at him, showing teeth like a piranha—though, admittedly, they're far less intimidating coming from something whose head is the size of a field mouse than something with a mouth like a shark’s. The creature makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a purr and settles on Ianto’s knee, still holding onto his finger.

Behind him, Jack shifts uncomfortably and slides away, leaving Ianto alone on the couch. “Coffee?” he asks distractedly, but doesn’t wait for an answer before he heads for the kitchen.

Ianto and the fairy both watch him go, Ianto with a sad sigh. The fairy hears it and sighs back, tugging on his finger to get his attention. “ _O never give the heart outright, for they, for all smooth lips can say, have given their hearts up to the play. And who could play it well enough if deaf and dumb and blind with love?_ ” it offers solemnly.

“I know,” Ianto returns, “but I'm human. I can't help whom I love, any more than you can help but protect the Chosen Ones. But Jack lost someone because of your kind, and he needs a little while to understand that you're the reason I'm back.”

“ _Not human,_ ” the fairy corrects, giggling brightly as it flutters up towards his face to hover in front of his nose. “ _Our child now—not born but made. Children born of fairy stock never need for shirt or frock; they live on cherries, they run wild—I'd love to be a Fairy's child._ ”

Ianto laughs a little at that, finally freeing his finger from the creature’s grip. “Well, you're one better, I suppose—the real thing. But if that’s a child _born_ , what does that make me?”

The fairy claps its hands as though with glee and whirls away, flittering from one thing to another around the room. “ _Made, not born,_ ” it repeats, childlike voice merry. “ _Greatest creation, Protector—made of earth, air, fire, water, starlight. We shape you, Protector._ ” It lands on his knee again and laughs wickedly. “ _Shaped and made and everlasting. Greatest creation, Protector. Ours now. All ours._ ”

And with that it’s gone, vanished back to that other world. Ianto can feel its path, the way it travels, as though he were doing it himself. And perhaps he could, he thinks, if they allowed it. Is he still normal, still mostly human, or have they changed things, changed _him_? He still feels like the same person, but is he really? What else is he, having been made by the fairies as a guardian for the Chosen Ones?

Jack returns before he can consider the question too deeply, bearing two mugs of coffee and a wary expression as he inspects the corners for the fairy. At his questioning look, Ianto shakes his head and explains, “It left. I think it was just checking on me. It’s the same one that was there when I first woke up.” He wraps his fingers around the steaming mug Jack hands him and takes a deep breath of the steam. It’s not the same mix of beans he used to use, but that’s to be expected. The mixture probably went up with the Hub, and no one else knew where he got it. There are downsides to being the only one to do the shopping.

Still, it’s coffee, and Ianto feels as if he hasn’t had a cup in years—as if that’s the only part of him that acknowledges the time that has passed. He’s glad to have it, even if it is Jack's and could do double duty as paint thinner—it seems some things learned as a soldier are never forgotten. The first sip is like that first rush of returning life, only without the oversensitivity and motionless limbs. It curls through his body, warming him from within, and he breathes a soft sigh of relief before raising his eyes to Jack.

The Captain is watching him with a small smile, eyes equally warm. “Good, Ianto?”

Ianto nods and returns the smile, but says, “I'm sorry if they—it _I_ —make you uncomfortable, Jack, but they're not going to harm anyone here. Not anymore.”

Jack blows out a short, loud breath and rocks back on his heels. “It’s not that _you_ make me uncomfortable,” he corrects hesitantly. “It’s just…bad memories.”

It only takes a moment to call up his recollection of Estelle and another, far older file in the Archives—a train full of soldiers, heading for a diamond mine, who all died choking on rose petals. Jack had buried that particular file deeply, but Ianto knows his Archives very well. There's nothing in there that he can't find if he wants to.

But, just a little, Jack's reaction hurts. The fairies have brought Ianto back, returned him to life when the Doctor couldn’t, when all of the technology and advancements of the future couldn’t help Jack save him. The fairies did it when they had no reason to, and they could have chosen anyone else and had an easier time of it. Ianto doesn’t expect Jack to suddenly be fast friends with them, but surely he can at least tolerate them without fleeing the room.

Jack must read that on his face, because he takes a seat next to Ianto and leans against him, their sides pressed together but their bodies otherwise not touching. “Can I have a little more time before I'm all right with them invading my base at the drop of a hat?” he asks, a little wryly. “I'm grateful to them, Yan, more grateful than I can say, but they’ve been our enemies for a lot longer than they’ve been a help.”

With a sigh, Ianto relaxes into the cushions—not lumpy any longer, which is almost as shocking as the new coffee machine. The old couch had probably been at Torchwood almost as long as Jack. He takes another sip of coffee and nods once, firmly. “I regret to inform you, sir, that even if you change your mind about being comfortable with me, I'm not leaving. You're stuck with me for a very long time,” he tells Jack, and the Captain laughs.

“I hope so,” he says, wrapping an arm around Ianto’s shoulders. “I really, really hope so.”

*.~.*.~.*

Surprisingly, Gwen is the first one in that morning, arriving at eight on the mark with a tray of Starbucks coffee and a bag from the local bakery. She startles slightly when Ianto rounds the corner to greet her, but then drops both things on her desk and wraps him in a firm hug.

“Oh, Ianto,” she whispers in his ear, “it’s been so sad here without you. I'm not sure how we survived.”

Ianto smiles and offers her the mug he’s carrying. “Neither am I, if Jack made you drink his coffee the whole time.”

She laughs as she takes the cup, and if the sound is a little watery, neither of them mentions it. “Yeah, that would do it. Can you imagine? Surviving all of this—” a sweep of her hand incorporates the Hub and Cardiff in general “—only to be done in by the boss’s caffeine addiction?”

Chuckling, Ianto leans forward to kiss her cheek. “It’s good to be back, Gwen.”

“And it’s good to have you back,” she agrees, beaming at him. Her smile is as gap-toothed as ever, and just as lovely as Ianto remembers. He’s never resented her for her adoration of Jack, because Jack's the type to need that kind of regard. Gwen is finally settled, too, and it looks good on her.

“How’s Anwen?” he asks, trying to picture the little girl Jack told him about. He hopes, for her sake, that she gets her mother’s looks and brain.

Gwen’s smile, if anything, grows wider; she’s every inch the proud mother. “Oh, Ianto, she’s lovely. You have to come over and see her! And Rhys will be so glad you're back.”

Personally, Ianto’s fairly certain that if Rhys is glad he’s back, it’s only to serve as a distraction for Jack. Still, he’d love to see the baby, so he nods. “As soon as I get all the paperwork in order to be a living citizen again, I will. It would be rather awkward to be pulled over otherwise.”

Her laughter is soft, but she leans forward to kiss his cheek in return. “Always the practical one, Ianto. When have you ever been pulled over, love?”

“This would be a bad time to start, seeing as I'm legally dead,” he reminds her, offering his arm as he had once before. The gesture reminds him of happier times—as it does Gwen, if the softening of her smile is anything to go by. She grips his elbow, laughing a little.

“We really need to get your suits out of storage,” she remarks. “This just doesn’t feel the same without them. Let me just finish my report from the other day and we’ll go, okay?”

That’s right, he remembers—as per Torchwood protocol, everything that was in his apartment has been boxed up and put in storage. Even if he no longer has an apartment to return it to, that knowledge is a little comforting. There has been no great sale of his things. He still has them all. It’s almost as though Torchwood put the procedure in place to deal with employees returning from the dead or after being taken by the Rift.

“Sure,” he answers, feeling Gwen’s eyes on him. “I’d love to. Thank you, Gwen.”

The sound of the cog door rolling open and the alarms going off breaks them apart, and Ianto turns to smile at Martha. She smiles back, still the same lovely person, inside and out, that he met during that disastrous mission at the Pharm.

“Morning, Ianto,” she greets him cheerfully. “Feeling alright?”

“Never better,” he demurs, accepting her hug. She, like Gwen, hangs on just a little longer than she normally would have, and Ianto allows it without complaint. His team is his family, almost more than his sister and her children are, and he knows what they felt when he died. Now that he’s back, a little prolonged contact is a small price to pay for soothing their fears.

At length, Martha pulls back and surveys him closely. “No ill effects?” she demands. “Nothing psychological?”

Ianto shakes his head. “Nothing. I'm not sure it’s entirely hit me yet, though,” he allows. “The fairy I've spoken with seems to think I'm ‘everlasting’, which is a lot to take in.”

“Hm.” Two pairs of worried eyes look him over, and the girls trade glances. Martha worries her wedding ring for a moment and then smiles. “Well, no taking extra chances just to test it, Ianto. Whether you're immortal or not, the last thing any of us wants to see is your death—especially those of us seeing it again.”

Suspecting that she’s seen the tapes from Thames House, Ianto gives in without argument. “Very well. Can I get you some coffee? Or if you'd rather, it appears Gwen brought Starbucks.”

Gwen laughs, and Martha wrinkles her nose, shaking her head. “Ianto, it’s nothing to yours. Seeing as Gwen’s already got some, would you mind making another cup?”

“Certainly. I’ll make a fresh pot—it’s about time for Jack's second cup anyway.” Ianto looks between them both for a minute, momentarily overwhelmed by the thought that he could have _stayed_ _dead_. He could have never seen either of these remarkable women again. Or Jack. Or Andy. Nothing. Everything. It would have all been lost.

As much as he wants to fear the fairies because of everything he’s read, everything he’s seen or been told, he can't. They’ve given him a second chance, and he’ll always be grateful to them for it, no matter how long he lives.

*.~.*.~.*

This is his armor, Ianto thinks, smoothing down the sleek navy pinstripe of his suit jacket. Everything fits the same, of course, and the mere fact of wearing it has rebuilt Ianto’s defenses nearly to their normal level. Where Jack has his greatcoat and Gwen her belief in humanity, where Tosh had her technology and Owen his sarcasm, Ianto has his suits and his manner, and he’s never been more relieved to return to that ever-efficient, carefully anonymous figure. Even if the team recognizes him—and they do, because he’s been one of them ever since the camping trip with the cannibals—other people don’t. They remember the suit, and the manners, but nothing about him, and that’s the way he likes it.

Someone gives a wolf-whistle, and Ianto turns to see Jack leaning against the edge of the door into the room set up for Ianto’s use, eyes brightly mischievous and hot in a way Ianto hasn’t seen in far too long. That grin is something he’s missed, too—so bright and blinding it should be marketed as an alternative form of power. Ianto smiles back at him, more restrained but no less happy, and says, “Careful. That’s sexual harassment, sir.”

“Ogling,” Jack corrects. “I'm ogling you right now.” He steps into the room set up for Ianto’s use, pulling the door. “But if you'd like, I'm sure we can change that to a more hands-on type of harassment.”

Ianto laughs at him, because Jack is always Jack, even when startled or grieving or facing a lover returned from the grave. It’s reassuring, really, and he reaches out to take Jack's hand. “Be my guest,” he offers, dropping his voice to something low and smoky, and Jack groans as he pulls him close. The kiss starts out soft, reacquainting themselves with the familiar touch and taste, and quickly turns desperate. Jack wraps his arms around Ianto’s shoulders, twists his hands into Ianto’s hair, and devours his mouth with lips and teeth and tongue. Ianto meets the fervor as best he can, stripping Jack of his coat with fumbling hands, and they collapse together onto the narrow mattress.

“Tell me again why you got your own room when I'm never letting you out of mine again?” Jack gasps, arching into the questing hands as Ianto unbuttons his shirt.

“Propriety,” Ianto reminds him, even though he can't remember very well either at the moment, breathless at the speed with which he’s being stripped in return. Jack doesn’t bother with getting his slacks off, but simply undoes the zipper and button and shoves them and his pants down around his hips. Ianto whimpers as Jack's hand closes over him, hot and calloused in all the places Ianto remembers, and tries to recover enough coordination to return the favor. It’s difficult, though, when Jack knows just how to touch him, just where to lighten the pressure and where to increase it, in order to drive him out of his mind.

“Oh, god, Ianto,” Jack murmurs into the side of this throat, then twists to kiss him again, messy and frantic. “Ianto. Thought I’d lost you. _God_.”

A well-timed twist of that clever, clever hand steals all power of speech from Ianto’s brain, but he shoves his hand between them, knocks Jack’s hand away, and wraps both of them in his grip, pumping hard. Jack hisses, dropping his head to mouth at Ianto’s neck and collarbone, and the press and nit of his teeth only heightens the fire sparking up Ianto’s spine. He gasps, breathless, into Jack's hair and throws his head back, trying to choke down a cry. They're alone in the Hub, the team out at lunch, but they might return at any moment.

Ianto twists his hand, swipes a hand over the crowns of both cocks, and is undone by Jack's heat and scent and simple presence. He cries out, unable to choke it back, and comes in a messy, sticky, utterly satisfying flood between them. Jack groans, sinks his teeth into Ianto’s collarbone, and follows, the hot splash of his come on Ianto’s skin sending another spike of pure desire through the Welshman’s nerve endings.

They collapse together, breathless and shaking with exertion, and Jack wraps Ianto in his arms.

“You're back,” he breathes, and for the first time, he sounds as though he truly believes it.

“I'm home,” Ianto agrees, running his fingers through Jack's sweaty hair, and knows it’s true in every way.


	4. I am the diamond glints on snow

When Ianto dreams, he sees the Chosen Ones.

There are thousands of them, millions, stretching throughout time and space. Even when Earth is no more, they still exist, and Ianto knows all of them. He _knows_ them, knows their names and their histories, how they meet the fairies for the first time and when they're taken. They're all unhappy children, just as he was, and it makes his heart ache for them.

Ianto knows what it’s like to have a childhood that is far from perfect, and he can see now that the team had done Jasmine a favor in letting her go—everyone who lets a Chosen One go does them a favor, because they're undeniably better off in the other world. In this one, they would be unhappy. Unhappiness turns all too often to dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction turns to hatred, whether of a place or a person. Ianto knows from personal experience how the little things can poison a childhood, how seemingly innocuous little details become the scars of a lifetime.

There is a phantom ache in his leg where he broke it being pushed too hard on a swing, a reminder of sharp pain that shouldn’t exist after so many years and the creation of a new body. Ianto shifts uneasily, trying to ease it, but in this dream it’s too persistent. He grits his teeth as it grows and tries to bury the pain in thoughts of the Chosen Ones, thoughts of Jack.

It works, to a degree, and the pain subsides until he can breathe normally.

With a flutter of dragonfly wings, the fairy Ianto recognizes drops to crouch beside him, gangly limbs folded with an odd grace. It leans over Ianto where he sits cross-legged in the fairy meadow, but its presence isn’t threatening. If anything, it’s protective, and there is something akin to pity in its eyes.

From a creature so old, so powerful, so indispensable to his continued existence, Ianto can't bring himself to resent that pity.

“ _Come away, O human child_! _To the waters and the wild with a fairy hand in hand, for the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand,_ ” it repeats mournfully. “ _Would you have come, child?_ ” It lays one gnarled, long-fingered hand on Ianto’s shoulder and grips gently, in something that might almost be a comforting touch.

Ianto looks down at his hands, neatly folded in his lap. He was always a bit of an odd child, abnormal—and told so often. Truthfully, he doesn’t even have to think about his answer.

“Had you come to me then?” he says. “Yes. I would have. In a heartbeat. But…I never saw you, not then, and maybe it worked out for the best in the end.”

There are more fairies, small and large, all around them. Ianto can look at each one of them and pick out the former Chosen Ones, see which ones have changed from human into… _other_. More of them than he had thought, but then again, the fairies are timeless, not bound to live in a linear fashion. They lay their hands on him, touch him in some way, and the presence of them, the _strangeness_ , is all but overwhelming. It’s comforting, though, in an odd way.

“ _Ours_ ,” the fairy hisses, but it’s a soft sound, fond. “ _Greatest creation._ ” It pats his arm and steps back, drawing the others with it. “ _How still the plains of the waters be! The tide is in his ecstasy. The tide is at his highest height: and it is night.”_

Another takes up the verse, giggling. They're all giggling, rising up into the air like a flight of mismatched doves, and Ianto smiles at them as one dips near his nose to whisper, “ _And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep roll in on the souls of men, but who will reveal to our waking ken the forms that swim and the shapes that creep under the waters of sleep?_ ”

The meadow rings with the susurration of hummingbird-quick wings, and then silence. All that remains is a fading murmur of, “ _Ours_.”

If anyone before had told Ianto that he would feel reassured at being claimed like property by a group of god-like creatures out of myth, he would have gently suggested a visit to the mental ward of the nearest hospital and some vacation time. Now, though, it’s oddly reassuring, like proof of his belonging _somewhere_ even when he never has before.

Ianto passes back into nothingness to dreams of tall oaks with branches intricately woven, regardless of a lack of human touch, and broad-bladed marsh grass stretching down towards a silver sea.

*.~.*.~.*

He comes back to himself in the middle of a midnight wood. There's no moon, even though Ianto knows it’s supposed to be waxing tonight, but it’s also not necessary. The starlight filtering through the branches somehow leaves the woods as bright as noon, and Ianto can clearly make out the stocky man dragging a young boy by the arm.

The boy is a Chosen One, Ianto knows from a single glance. All of their faces are burned into his memory, blazing right behind his eyes, and he can _feel_ it, like lightning in his chest.

It’s different from the way he knows the man holding the child. Ianto knows _him_ because he sees the man reflected in a hundred pitiless eyes, sees him through the fairies fluttering around the boughs with angry whispers.

 _There are none so blind as will not see_ , Ianto thinks wryly as the man, unaware, drags his son past a green-skinned fairy that bares its teeth and hisses furiously. He knows why he’s been brought here, why he’s seeing this.

The fairies have someone to step in for them now, and they want him to take care of this.

The chill night air burns Ianto’s lungs as he steps forward, bare feet silent in the mulch of dead leaves beneath the branches. He’s not naked—something to be thankful for—but there's something…different about him. It’s as though the blood running through his veins has changed, turned molten and sharp and sweet and _wild_ , because he takes a breathe and all he can feel is the power of the earth beneath his feet, the life in the trees, the tension singing though the air. Everything, _everything_ around him is alive, from the clouds above him to the plant roots stretching deep into the earth.

And all of it is demanding the return of the child.

“Stop,” Ianto calls to the man, the words escaping before he can so much as consider them. “Let the boy go.”

In the boughs, around the trunks, the fairies hiss angrily. They don’t want the man to leave the wood alive. Seeing the bruises on the little boy’s face, Ianto can't help but agree.

This part of him isn’t new. He’s always had a cold, dark edge to him, but he usually controls it better than this. Right now, though, it’s free and sharp in his head, driving him towards _revengevengeancekillprotect_. He _likes_ it, even when he knows he shouldn’t, when he knows that Jack and Gwen would be horrified to see him this way.

The man spins to glare at him, letting go of his son and raising a hunting rifle to his shoulder. “Who are you?” he snarls. “What do you want?”

Ianto lifts his hands, even though the gesture hardly makes him more vulnerable when the air itself is twisting around him, when a hundred fairies are swarming around them. “That boy doesn’t belong to you,” he says, dismissing the questions. “I've come to bring him to his real home.”

From the way the boy’s face lights up, he understands, and he tries to dart around his father. The man catches him by the scruff of the neck and hauls him back, and Ianto feels his hackles rise.

“What the hell’re you on about?” The man’s voice is incredulous. “He’s my _son_.”

Ianto smiles at the boy, and some of the wildness he feels must be reflected in his eyes, because the father flinches back even as the boy struggles forward. “Yes,” Ianto agrees, “but you don’t deserve to be his father.”

Wind howls through the wood, shaking the trees wildly, and the boy wrenches free of his father’s hand. He staggers towards Ianto, the gale parting around him, and Ianto catches him with utmost care. “You're safe,” he murmurs as the boy buries his face in Ianto’s shirt. “I’ll take you somewhere he’ll never find you again.”

The fairies whisper around them, gleefully triumphant, and Ianto can feel the elation of an entire world singing through his veins. The man shouts, cries out something that might be a plea to God or the devil, and staggers back. The rifle that he had allowed to dip towards the ground rises again, and Ianto sees it coming a moment too late to do anything but turn his back to it and cover the child.

The gunshot is deafening.

The pain is sharp, fiery, and burns, but there is none of the accompanying darkness that Ianto expects from a relatively close-range shot to the heart.

Instead, everything grows brighter, and then the little wood is suddenly a deep, primeval forest, dark with the passing of ages. Ianto straightens, looking around. The pain is gone—if anything, he feels a thousand times better than he ever has before. This place _sings_ to him, like a lover or a parent, holding him close to its heart. He’s alone.

And then he’s not. The fairy that always speaks with him flutters down to crouch on gangly limbs, grinning at him.

Ianto understands the meaning of that grin. “You killed him with roses? That’s very distinctive, I hope you know. Whoever finds him will report it, and Torchwood will know what happened.”

The creature giggles at him and leans forward to place one long finger over Ianto’s heart. There is no concern in its eyes, only ancient, aged satisfaction, and it laughs at him again. “ _You love the roses - so do I. I wish the sky would rain down roses, as they rain from off the shaken bush. Why will it not? Then all the valley would be pink and white and soft to tread on. They would fall as light as feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be like sleeping and like waking, all at once!_ ”

Ianto smiles back, because he saw the bruises on the boy’s face, made by a man’s large hand. He saw the way the boy flinched at even painless touches. In his head, all he can hear is Rhiannon saying, “ _Maybe you should have held on tighter_ ,” and his heart screaming a denial.

He did not want to hold on tighter, and neither does this boy.

“Why bring me here?” Ianto asks the fairy, who watches him in return. “The boy would have come with you anyway. Did you just want to show me your power?”

“ _Our power?_ ” The fairy laughs, changing form as it rises into the air. Small and moon-white, it hovers in front of his face and leans forward to tap him on the nose. “ _No, human child. Yours._ ”

It disappears into the darkness, and Ianto suddenly can't breathe. _His_? _His_ power? He remembers the wind and the strength of growing things and shakes his head. It’s a denial, because that _can't_ have been him doing it. Ianto is human. It’s one of his defining features. He is not immortal like the Captain, undead like Owen was, even capable of immortalizing himself in programs and inventions like Toshiko. When he dies, there will be only human emotions to remember him by, and Ianto likes it that way.

Only now, it seems as though he’s not going to die.

One hand comes up, sliding compulsively through the small hole in the back of his shirt. Ianto knows a bullet hole when he sees one, and he remembers the shot to the back that should have entered—did enter?—his heart.

 _Everlasting_ , a fairy voice whispers in his ear, and Ianto can't tell if it’s a memory. _Everlasting_.

But Ianto doesn’t want to be everlasting. He’s seen what it has done to Jack, the torture Jack has had to endure. He’s—

 _Jack_.

The idea drives him to his knees, breathless and gasping. He is going to live _forever_. He is not going to _die_. Just like Jack, Ianto will exist until the end of time, and the thought of that _terrifies_ Ianto. To see everyone around him die, pass on, an outlive _all_ of them. To see Mica grow and marry and age and die, and still remain exactly as he is now. To bury whatever children he eventually has.

Ianto has always thought himself relatively detached from the world, but the idea of having to watch all of the world’s people pass him by and never being _one_ of them shakes him to his core.

“Why?” he whispers, a sharp demand. “Why me? Why not choose anyone else in all of time and space? I'm just—”

There is laughter, laughter from all around him, sweet and eerie and ever so deadly, and Ianto shudders as it washes over his skin like the prickling rush of a thousand pins and needles. The whispers have returned, countless voices, or maybe just one voice, but the words echo in his head so insistently that it feels like they're being imprinted on his very soul.

“ _Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow; I am the diamond glints on snow; I am the sunlight on ripened grain; I am the gentle autumn rain._ ”

“That tells me _nothing_ ,” Ianto insists, raising his head, trying to see any of the fairies, but they’ve all hidden themselves away.

Laughter again, and the one he knows steps out to lean over him, protective and kind the way it was the first time he awoke. Its fingers wrap around Ianto’s wrists and it pulls him to his feet, gently adamant. Ianto goes along with it, because he can't _not_ , and because he has the strangest feeling that he’d hate to disappoint any of these creatures.

The fairy reaches out and puts one hand in his hair, the other resting over his heart, and it smiles at him, oddly parental. “ _When you awaken in the morning hush, I am the quick uplifting rush of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft star that shines at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there, I did not die._ ”

They’ve tied him to the Earth, Ianto realizes with a chilling start, just as they are tied themselves. Was it just a few days ago that he thought about how they will remain as long as the Earth has at some point existed? Out of time, inside of their own time, something different than time travel but not entirely separate.

Ianto can't help but wonder how Jack's Doctor will react to him now. If he had thought Jack was something wrong, something impossible, what will he think of Ianto?

“ _Human child_ ,” the fairy croons, and there's something gleeful in its tone. “ _Not human anymore. Our child_.” It laughs and changes shape, and darts small and swift into the trees. The rest of the fairies go with it, a thousand wings beating hummingbird-quick, and Ianto is once more in Roundstone Wood, lying prone on the ground with a crying little boy clinging to his side and a corpse a few paces away.

He sighs and closes his eyes, pulling the boy a little closer with an arm around his shoulders. It’s been a long day, and it’s not even dawn yet.

*.~.*.~.*

Eventually, Ianto manages to gather his strength and open his eyes. The boy has stopped crying, comforted by close contact, and Ianto presses an absent kiss to his forehead as he stands. The boy smiles up at him, hesitant and a little wild, like a feral cat, but he seems to trust that Ianto won't hurt him.

“You can see them?” he asks, and _god_ , he can't be more than six. “You can see the fairies too?”

“Yes,” Ianto assures him. “They saved my life, and they want to take you home with them. I'm Ianto, by the way.”

The boy grins at him, showing gaps in his teeth that Ianto can't be certain came from losing his teeth naturally, not with that brute of a father. “I'm Dai. You'll let me go with them?”

Ianto smiles and ruffles his hair. The woods are growing brighter, warmer, as though summertime has come in the space between one breath and the next. “I wouldn’t dream of stopping you, Dai. You know which way to go?”

It’s rather shocking to realize that he means that wholeheartedly. He wouldn’t do anything to stop this child from going to the fairies, because he knows just how it feels to always be the odd one out, the boy the others avoid and look at askance. Perhaps that’s the difference between him and Jack: Jack always wants to see the best in people, to the point of overlooking the small signs of unhappiness, whereas Ianto knows very well that being alive is hardly the same as being happy.

“I do,” Dai says, and that grin is so bright and beautiful that Ianto kisses his forehead again, like a blessing, and nods to the sunny gap that has opened up between the trees.

“Go,” he urges softly. “Be happy.”

Dai doesn’t need any further urging. He turns and runs as though his feet have grown wings, arms outstretched and his laughter filling the air, and Ianto can see the fairies whirling and dancing around him. The world is rejoicing, and Ianto has never thought to wonder _why_ some children are Chosen, but this right here is the answer. They're the children who are just a little too wild, skewed a little to the left while the rest of humanity marches on in straight and boring lines. Living in the human world would stifle them, drive them to madness in a few short years, so they _have_ to go. The can never fit in here, and Ianto would never want to make them.

At the edge of the fairy world, Dai pauses and looks back, and he grins at Ianto again. “Come play with me!” he calls. “I’ll be waiting, Ianto!”

And then he’s gone, and the wood is dark and autumnal again, empty of all fairies and otherworldly passages.

Ianto sighs and tucks his hands in the pockets of his jeans for warmth. He shakes his head, letting the thoughts and realizations of the night settle, and heads for the border of the forest. Hopefully, if he can't find a payphone somewhere, he can knock on someone’s door and arrange for a ride back to the Hub.

He’s tired, and dawn is breaking, but it’s been a good night.


	5. Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there, I did not die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poems in this chapter are, in order of use, _Ah! Sunflower_ by William Blake and _Sonnet: I Thank You_ by Henry Timrod. This is the last chapter. Wow. But I’ve had fun writing it, and the muse has finally stopped gnawing at my leg, so it’s all good. Thanks to everyone who’s read it—much appreciation!

When Ianto returns to the Hub, dawn is well past, and he’s cold and tired but still oddly euphoric. If he explains his mood, though, he can only imagine the reactions—the others won't understand, _Jack_ won't understand, and Ianto can't bear to have such an awful ending to a wonderful night.

It’s a guilty relief, but Jack doesn’t ask. He simply takes Ianto down to his room and cocoons him in blankets, brings him a cup of paint-thinner coffee, and hovers. It takes Ianto several minutes to remember that Jack woke up alone in an empty room, with no way to find or contact Ianto, and had probably thought the fairies had taken him back.

He lifts up the blankets with one hand, quirking a brow in invitation, and Jack wastes no time in accepting it, sliding under the covers and pulling Ianto back against his chest. They sit in silence for a moment, Jack running his fingers carefully through Ianto’s hair, which is getting a bit too long. Ianto settles against him, taking his other hand before it can run up his chest and find the streaks of dried blood from his death.

There's a question in the air, waiting to be spoken, and Jack’s the one who seizes it.

“The fairies?” he asks softly, so soft that Ianto, if he wanted, could ignore the question and pretend he didn’t hear it.

Ianto doesn’t, though, and doesn’t want to. Jack's never been good at honesty, at telling the whole truth, but he’s rarely outright lied to anyone. The least Ianto can do—because of his own track record with lies, because of all the things he could have said when he was alive the first time but never did—is tell Jack the truth.

“Yes,” he agrees, and leaves it at that.

Jack wraps an arm around his waist and hauls him close, lips brushing against his ear, and then relaxes. He doesn’t say anything more, but Ianto can tell that he’s mostly satisfied, that he trusts Ianto to tell him if it’s something life altering or otherwise important. And, while Ianto hardly wants to go into details, he’s fairly certain that the knowledge of his being everlasting qualifies.

He opens his mouth to say something, but the door alarm wails, the rift alert goes off, and they're thrown headlong back into the madness that is Torchwood’s day-to-day.

There's a rhythm to it, Ianto thinks. Several days of nothing more exciting than Weevils, interspersed with alien fugitives and bounty hunters, a few mercenaries, and a near-invasion, settling to a handful of alien or future tech from the rift before it returns to rogue Weevils from the sewers—and then, every once in a while (meaning every few months like clockwork) some great disaster that threatens to end the world as they know it.

Even after everything has changed, nothing has. It’s still the way Ianto remembers, and there's something comforting in that, even when the world is about to be destroyed. The team is still unfamiliar, a little odd, but Ianto can overlook it when nothing else seems to have changed.

Nothing except for him, that is.

The fairies still come to him, take him away every few days to retrieve another Chosen One somewhere in time or just to play with the children they’ve taken. Dai is always happy to see him, and Jasmine is there, and countless others who haven’t seen an adult since they went with the fairies. They're all happy, though, and Ianto is glad for them. It’s a haven, a heaven, a Neverland where they can be children forever, these children who never before had normal childhoods. There is no Peter Pan to lead them, no Wendy to call them back, and Ianto settles more and more into what the fairies have created him as.

Jack continues to keep his silence about Ianto’s late-night disappearances, and it’s better for both of them that way. Jack's not able to accept that stealing away children can come to any good, and Ianto doubts anything can change Jack's mind once it’s made up.

But even with all the things that remain unspoken, Ianto can't remember a single time in his life that he's felt happier. The new team is an easy fit: he loves Martha, finds Mickey funny and competent, and likes Andy more than he thought possible. Ianto isn’t just the tea boy for them anymore. He’s one of them, a field agent and the Archivist, a necessary member of the group for something other than his ability to make good coffee.

Jack is content, too, and more careful of their relationship than ever. It’s as though he’s afraid it—or Ianto—will break if he presses too hard, as though it’s the most precious thing he’s ever had, and he’ll do anything to keep it the way it is.

Ianto’s not about to upset the status quo, but he’s also not about to let things lie as they are, not when there's the chance they could be so much better.

*.~.*.~.*

A little fairy flutters around Jack's office. He watches it warily, but he’s adjusting. They brought Ianto back, and that’s something he will never forget.

The creature—and because he’s not Ianto, he’s not sure if it’s the same one he’s seen before or not—drops down to perch on the frame of a picture of him and Ianto, twisting to peer at it upside-down. Jack looks, too. They're standing in front of the bay, his hand on Ianto’s shoulder, Ianto half-turned to grin up at him, both of them laughing and bright and victorious after diverting another invasion.

It makes Jack sad, just a little, that he didn’t speak the words at that time, either.

When he looks up, the fairy is watching him again, ageless, ancient eyes so eerily knowing. “ _Everlasting_ ,” it informs him in its child’s voice. “ _He is everlasting, Undying. Like you. Ah! sunflower, weary of time, who countest the steps of the sun, seeking after that sweet golden clime where the traveler’s journey is done._ ”

Carefully, Jack picks up the photograph, the fairy still balancing on it, and looks at the creature. “Even if we have forever, what about now? After Thames House, how can he—”

The fairy jumps forward, a sudden rush of movement that makes Jack lunge for his gun automatically. However, it does nothing but land on his free hand, a weight as inconsequential as moonbeams and starlight, and grins up at him with about six times the number of teeth something that size should have had.

“ _Protector is protecting,”_ it informs him. “ _Guarding heart. I thank you, kind and best beloved friend, with the same thanks one murmurs to a sister, when, for some gentle favor, he hath kissed her, less for the gifts than for the love you send, less for the flowers, than what the flowers convey; if I, indeed, divine their meaning truly, and not unto myself ascribe, unduly, things which you neither meant nor wished to say. Oh! tell me, is the hope then all misplaced? And am I flattered by my own affection? But in your beauteous gift, methought I traced something above a short-lived predilection, and which, for that I know no dearer name, I designate as love, without love’s flame._ ”

That, at least, needs no translation. Jack sighs and drops his gun to rub at his eyes. “No worries, then,” he mutters to himself. “We haven’t just been friends, no matter how good, since Suzie.”

The fairy just grins at him, giggles that sweet, high laugh, and vanishes, leaving behind a single red rose.

*.~.*.~.*

The words are so simple, so easy to say. Ianto hands Jack his morning coffee and leans over the desk to receive his morning kiss, and they come naturally.

“I love you, Jack.”

Jack looks up at him, and there's no stumbling, no fumbling for words or explanations. Ianto’s been wanting— _needing_ —to say this for months now. So he smiles at Jack, that soft, secret smile they only share only between them, and offers, “I thought you should know.”

Jack smiles back at him, grips his hand, and uses it to reel him in closer. “I do,” he says, stealing another kiss that is not sharp and hot, but gentle and warm and so sweet Ianto thinks he could weep. The words are a vow, one he knows, one he’s heard before in an anguished ‘ _don’t’_ that rang with all the words Jack couldn’t speak at that moment.

But now he can speak them. Now they're visible in his eyes, the curve of his lips, the brightness of his features. Jack pulls him closer, ever closer, and tucks Ianto against his side with a satisfied sigh. “I do,” he repeats, “and I love you, too, Ianto. I always have.”

Ianto has no illusions that theirs will be an easy existence, but in that moment, he can't bring himself to care.


End file.
